The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,88

The guards have been sending word down the chain of command that the size of the herd has grown from a dozen or so to nearly fifty, and the pack has been moving in a lumbering zigzag through the trees along Jones Mill Road, covering the distance between the deep woods and the outskirts of town at a speed of about two hundred yards an hour, growing in number as they come. Apparently the herds move even slower, collectively, than individual walkers. It has taken this herd fifteen hours to close the distance to four hundred yards.

Now some of them begin to emerge from the leading edge of the forest, shambling out into the open fields bordering the woods and the town. They look like broken toys in the hazy, distant twilight, like windup soldiers bumping into each other, running on the fumes of malfunctioning engines, their blackened mouths contracting and expanding like irises. Even at this distance the rising moon reflects off their milky eyes in shimmering coins of light.

Martinez has three Browning .50 caliber machine guns—courtesy of the ransacked National Guard depot—placed at key junctures along the wall. One sits on the bonnet of a backhoe at the west corner of the wall. Another one is situated on top of a cherry picker at the east corner. The third is positioned on the roof of a semitrailer on the edge of the construction site. Each of the three machine guns already has an operator in place, each man equipped with a headset.

Long gleaming bandoliers of incendiary armor-piercing tracer bullets dangle from the stock of each weapon, with extras in steel boxes sitting nearby.

Other guards take positions along the wall—on ladders and bulldozer scoops—armed with semiautomatics and long-range sniper rifles loaded with 7.62-millimeter slugs that will penetrate drywall or sheet metal. These men do not wear headsets, but each know to watch for hand signals from Martinez, who positions himself at the top of a crane gantry in the center of the post office parking lot with a two-way. Two enormous klieg lights—scavenged from the town theater—are wired up to the generator chugging in the shadows of the post office loading dock.

A voice crackles on Martinez’s radio: “Martinez, you there?”

Martinez thumbs the talk button. “Copy that, chief, go ahead.”

“Bob and I are on our way up there, gonna need to harvest some fresh meat.”

Martinez frowns, his brow furrowing under his bandanna. “Fresh meat?”

The voice sizzles through the tiny speaker: “How much time we got before all the fun and games start?”

Martinez gazes out at the darkening horizon, the closest zombies still about three hundred and fifty yards away. He thumbs the switch. “Probably won’t be within head-shot range for another hour, maybe a little less than that.”

“Good,” says the voice. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”

* * *

Bob follows the Governor down Main Street toward a wagon train of semi trucks parked in a semicircle outside the looted Menards home and garden center. The Governor walks briskly through the wintry evening air, a bounce to his step, his boot heels clicking on the paving stones. “Times like these,” the Governor comments to Bob as they march along, “must feel like you’re back in the shit in Afghanistan.”

“Yes, sir, I have to admit it does sometimes. I remember one time I got a call to drive down to the front, pick up some marines coming off their watch. It was nighttime, cold as a well digger’s ass, just like this. Air raid sirens screaming, everybody hopped up for a firefight. Drove the APC down to this godforsaken trench in the sand, and what do I find? Bunch of whores from the local village giving out blow jobs to the grunts.”

“No shit.”

“I shit you not.” Bob shakes his head in dismay as he walks alongside the Governor. “Right in the middle of an air raid. So I tell them to can it and get in before I leave them there. One of the whores gets in the APC with the men, and I’m like, what the hell. Whatever. Just get me out of this fucking place.”

“Understandable.”

“So I take off with the gal still going at it in the back of the APC. But you’ll never guess what happened then.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense, Bob,” the Governor says with a grin.

“All of a sudden I hear a crash in the back, and I realize that bitch is an insurgent, and she brought an IED in with her, set it off in the